A big project not handling HTTPS themselves (like docmost), adds tons of complexity on the server side. Now, I have to install that service as a container to isolate that, then need to add a reverse proxy on top, etc.
That leads to resource inflation when I just want to use a small VM for that single task. Now, instead I deploy a whole infrastructure to run that small thing.
Why? I've run plenty of normal non-containerized apps that bind localhost:1234 and then are reverse proxied by nginx or caddy or whatever.
(I agree that you would need a reverse proxy, I think that's kinda the point, it's the container thing I don't get)
Exhibit A: Docmost: https://docmost.com/docs/self-hosting/environment-variables
I can understand the reverse proxy, but I want to run thing on a small VPS or a Raspberry Pi, etc. I want to use minimum resources so I can run more things per server.
If this thing was being installed at work, I can build a great wall in front of it, but for personal things, I rather have less moving parts, and just deploy and forget the thing.
You can setup a Traefik (or some other ingress service) instance in a container and let it handle all the reverse proxying thingies for you. And if you do it right, the services should automatically register to the ingress service as they start up, and a port/HTTP route should be automatically assigned to them.
Do it in the old bare is harder and probably will always be harder, since you will be directly interact with OS facilities that was probably designed for something else than what you might try to run. Container management service such as Docker and Kubernetes abstracted away a lot of these complexities.
Funny enough, Traefik is written in Go... guess we've gone some (maybe not full) cycle on this one.
Containers are not bad per se, but cutting corners just because "this will run in a container, so they can just add another HTTPS terminator" is just carelessness IMHO. Because not all of us have homelabs at home to install an onion of services to run a simple service open to outside.
A good example of this is Wiki.js. It's desinged as container native, but handles its own ingress, HTTPS and Let's Encrypt certificates. I have no qualms to it, but when another tool just cuts corners and tells you that "It's easy to install, but bring your own secure ingress layer on top", it gets ugly.
Because it adds moving parts, most importantly wastes resources for a 3 person installation on small hardware, etc. Keep in mind, these are tools designed for small user-bases. They're not enterprise software.
On my day job, we call 80 machine clusters "small". But this is not about things I install/manage at my job.
You can get a single node Docker “cluster” going with Traefik in 15 seconds. There is no maintenance except updating occasionally. It doesn’t use much more resources. You do not need to install any third party tools. There is no onion of services. You literally just boot up Traefik plus your app.
This has been doable since at least 2019 by just installing Docker via your OS’ package manager.
I’ve started using containers before 99% of people and so got to see the fundamentals build up. You do not need to skip directly to “Kubernetes.” That’s like needing to wash your clothes so you skip directly to buying an industrial washing machine and then lamenting how all washing machines are overkill.
I'm not sure I follow. Docmost runs in a container, on a port which is configurable. By default, as all containers, that port is local to the container. The container orchestrator (be it docker CLI, docker-compose, Swarm, Nomad, Kubernetes, Podman) is the one who you instruct to expose a port from the container network to your host network. Docker tries to be smart and easy and will expose it on all networks by default, but even on it it's configurable, let alone on the more advanced options.
99% of them use system-wide PKI store for CA and their certificates, which is under /etc. All of them have configuration options for these folders, and have short certificate lives because of the operational regulations we have in place.
At worst case, we distribute them with saltstack. Otherwise we just use scp, maybe a small wrapper script. Managing them doesn't take any measurable time for us.
...and we have our own CA on top of it.
First, any enterprise/homelab installation with significant resources is outside of my scope. I don't care about them. When you don't pay for the infra/power cost, all bets are off. You can install quadruple redundant 300 node K8S cluster sitting on two different data centers in different cities connected to their own power generation equipment for a simple docmost instance.
I'm talking about small fry installations, for personal reasons, on small equipment. Think Raspi5/N100 NUC boxes as the target hardware.
I have limited resources, want no heat/noise at my home or want to pay as small as possible for a good VPS. Now, for something like docmost, I need a container runtime, and ingress controller/a reverse proxy, because I want to open this service to a VPN or web somehow.
I don't have much qualms with containers, as long as there are no cut corners. We'll talk about two examples here.
First is Wiki.js. Comes with 3 containers. DB, Wiki, Updater. OK. They are not much resource heavy, so acceptable. On top, Wiki container handles its own HTTPS, TLS certificates via Let's Encrypt (and allows custom ones, as well). It's the nice one. I can expose it, or hide it, I can handle my certificates or it can handle itself. Nice, batteries included. Install in 10 seconds, update occasionally, enjoy.
Second is docmost. It's a nice tool. Allows me to create a space and put a bunch of people in to collaborate. Install for desktop in 10 seconds & Works. Nice. I want to open it to outside. Forward a couple of ports? No. There's no HTTPS. Now I need to terminate it. Traefik? Too big for the job. Apache, doable but needs half an hour from get go. Can I limit it to localhost for local installations, for myself? No. As long as I run it, it binds to 0.0.0.0. So, if I want to install it locally to my desktop, I still need to add a firewall in front of it, because whole LAN can see it, and no, I don't trust any devices on my network (not people, but the apps).
This is my problem. I want batteries included solutions, which can adapt to my circumstances. I don't have the desire to run n servers for m services, because they are too lazy to be flexible to adapt their environments. It's not I can't do it, it's the contrary, but I don't want to, because I want to live my life and have time for people and things I care.
The services I use must be able to adaptable to my environment. This is how bare-metal services, daemons in UNIX world work. I can fit a whole rack of services in a powerful enough server and isolate them if required. It saves space, power, time and sanity. Littering services with services in boxes and putting more boxes on top of that because their developers are lazy makes my blood boil.
My service doesn't take much resources, also the DB I use is light by itself. I added traefik, which is also light, and the VPN daemon which is also light.
However, these four layers are not light. They're heavier. I'd rather don't have Traefik in front and have a lighter stack, because for that much resources, I can run another server at another port, which can save me another VPS (money, maintenance time, documentation and interconnection).
I mean, we were using jails before Linux had containers. I'm not new to system administration or computers in general.
I don't get angry because things are complicated/hard. I get angry because we waste resources and write bad software because we somehow think "worst is the best".
Things add up. Light becomes heavy, easy becomes meaninglessly complex. This shouldn't be like that.
> it involves less moving parts
Every sane person who experienced a few server updates will not put out claim like that. One day you ran `apt upgrade -y`, minutes later 30% of your clients PHP website somehow went down? "less moving parts"?
In fact, Docker was invented to address this exact "it worked on my machine, why not yours" problem, by actually introducing "less moving parts".
> cutting corners just because "this will run in a container, so they can just add another HTTPS terminator" is just carelessness IMHO
Stop trying to misrepresent anything. No one is trying to solve a problem by wrapping HTTPS terminator with "another HTTPS terminator". Also, for real, how can you terminate HTTPS twice?
Also, from your another post:
> Traefik plus my service is two layers. My service has a DB hidden behind it, it's three layers. I put a VPN in front of it, and now it's four.
Why stop there, if you start from user's keyboard as a layer, then there's 5, and screen 6, then countless Internet cable and routers. Man! so many layers, it's crazy!
Also, that's not how you structure things. You have a reverse proxy, and then a service, 2 layers total.
And VPN? Oh boy you'll probably be surprised that Docker has cross-node communication built right in (https://docs.docker.com/engine/network/drivers/overlay/), so you don't even need VPN to connect to your database.
Alright, alright, please, just admit that currently containerization is not a technology you can correctly take advantage of, and then you go ahead and learn more about it. It will be an useful tool for you, as it did for many, I'm sure.
I don't think those would be negatively impacted by running Docker or Caddy. Isn't the performance cost of containers minimal these days?
I had similar thoughts in the past, but when I looked up performance comparisons between running something on docker vs without a container, the resulting performance was practically identical.
No!?
> everybody is down voting your 42133422 post to shit
They can, we don't have to agree on everything.
> so you're down voting everyone who replied you?
You can't downvote replies to your own comments, plus I don't downvote people because they have a different view than mine. Heck, I don't downvote as a principle. As long as the comment needs a flag, too.
> No one is trying to solve a problem by wrapping HTTPS terminator with "another HTTPS terminator"
Ow. I say "people don't add https functionality to their code, because they expect it to be done elsewhere, and that's bad practice". Do you read what I have written?
> Why stop there, if you start from user's keyboard as a layer...
Can you just calm down?
> And VPN? Oh boy you'll probably be surprised that Docker has cross-node communication built right in (https://docs.docker.com/engine/network/drivers/overlay/), so you don't even need VPN to connect to your database.
Who said I use a VPN to connect to my database? I have a closed/dark network of hosts on different locations sitting behind a NATs forming a personal network. This is what that VPN is about.
> Alright, alright, please, just admit that currently containerization is not a technology you can correctly take advantage of, and then you go ahead and learn more about it. It will be an useful tool for you, as it did for many, I'm sure.
Alright, alright, please just admit that you didn't understood a single bit of my posts, and can't paint a picture of what I'm talking about, and then you go ahead and read it all again. It will be a useful exercise for you, as it did for many, I'm sure.
Now I need to clean my keyboard of this coffee, and need to handle my OpenStack cluster. Oh, boy...
Thank you.
:)
What do you think Traefik is if you think Apache is OK? It's similar in size and footprint, just modern (you can point it directly to Docker or any number of sources and it auto configures itself). I've ran Traefik with Docker containers behind it on Raspberry Pi 3s, this isn't supercomputer territory.
> As long as I run it, it binds to 0.0.0.0. So, if I want to install it locally to my desktop, I still need to add a firewall in front of it, because whole LAN can see it, and no, I don't trust any devices on my network (not people, but the apps
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22100587/docker-expose-a...
Come on, this took literally a few seconds to Google.
> This is my problem. I want batteries included solutions, which can adapt to my circumstances.
Which is it, batteries included or flexible? It's hard to be both, and funny you complain about that, Traefik is a perfect example of a tool that does both well.
> The services I use must be able to adaptable to my environment. This is how bare-metal services, daemons in UNIX world work
Ah, so you don't need systemd/an init and service system? Or libc? Or iptables/firewall? You just plop an app and everything magically works how you want it to?
I think you have fundamental knowledge gaps, and instead of trying to address them, or think about why would a project prefer to not reinvent the wheel everyone already has anyway, you prefer to rant that it wasn't like this in the good old days. Good old days with cgi-bin and php-fpm that needed a reverse proxy in front anyways, so nothing has changed other than an abundance of documentation and examples and flexibility.
My qualm is about trimming fairly standard features and offloading it to somewhere else.
A single HTTP service + traefik (or Apache/NGINX reverse proxy) is heavier than a single HTTPS service. Plus adds more moving parts for smaller installations. f I was running an API farm, I can add all kinds of bells and whistles, and it'll be lighter overall, but this is not a valid reason for stripping fairly simple features from applications which will be used by small teams on small hardware.
Plus, this additional layers can sometimes conflict (A requires B, C required D, where B & D are same thing but either one can't accommodate A & C at the same time), requiring a completely new system to run the service, which is wasteful, from my perspective.
So even for two apps from the same vendor, which are commonly deployed together, you need bespoke TLS file variants. Scale that to more applications, and you’ll find out the hard way that you are vastly underestimating the complexity of operating a software ecosystem.
Consider yourself lucky then.
For self-hosted third party software, I've seen requirements to provide it in an environment variable, upload it to a web form over plain http on localhost, specify an AWS secret service secret that contains it, put it in a specific location that is bind mounted into a container, create a custom image (both VM and container), etc.
How heavy are talking, and what would be the measured impact?
I have worked on small teams (3~4 people) where we had to use our own infrastructure for regulatory reasons. I also self-host a few things as a hobby. I don't think Nginx or Caddy were ever a bottleneck, and at the human level, they saved more resources than not using them. I don't remember the last time I exposed something to a network using their bundled http server directly rather than a reverse proxy. I don't like wasting computational resources of course, but % wise, 'optimizing' them by not using containers or a reverse proxy wouldn't net any visible gains - there's usually other low hanging fruit that gives you more for your time.